“We got these guys in here, we like what we saw on tape,” said Chargers defensive coordinator Greg Manusky, who got five potential new players between Thursday and Saturday. “Now it’s up to the kids. Will they have success in the season coming up? It’s on them, and it’s up to the coaches to put them in position to succeed.”

Chargers rookies would participate in a rookie orientation in two weeks if the NFL lockout is over. If it’s not, which it isn’t expected to be, then there is no telling when teams will get to see their newest players on the field.

Even then, despite our need to assign instantaneous grades to drafts, it will take months and even years to truly see the realized potential of the eight players the Chargers added over the past three days.

“Three years,” A.J. Smith said of the time you need to get an accurate evaluation of a draft.

Patience? Delayed gratification?

The draft is practically un-American.

Shop the dealerships for months, kick the tires, run your hands over the hood, even test drive. Then buy the car and put it in the garage for a few months.

This is like getting football players on layaway. (Do people even do that anymore?)

Smith in no way meant the Chargers intend to wait three years for this draft class to make an impact. The Chargers are a lot happier with their five picks in the first three rounds than the populace is expressing via email and social media.

While the degree to which first-round pick Corey Liuget’s succeeds will widely be the standard by which this draft is graded, the lightning rod in the immediate aftermath is linebacker Jonas Mouton. His selection in the second round, even among those generally impressed with the Chargers’ work the past three days, has been a sticking point.

Mouton had heard he might go in third round. Few would have been shocked to see him taken after that.

The Chargers took him in the second round — with pick No. 61 — and did so without intel about any team slotted before the Chargers’ next pick at 82nd having designs on him.

“We like him; we put him in the second round,” Smith said. “I am more interested in the player than the round after the first round.”

As an aside, the so-called experts are actually giving the Chargers a passing grade. ESPN draftnik Mel Kiper, for instance, gave them a B-plus.

The Chargers don’t care about that either.

“We’ve got to go by how we evaluate players,” head coach Norv Turner said. “We made a strong emphasis on productive players that have played at a high level.”

Turner and others in the organization believe the draftees’ production in college in major conferences (the Chargers took three players from the Big 10 and one each from the Pac-10, SEC, Big 12, Big East and Mountain West) will carry over.